CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM 17There’s A Storm Comin’
Devin Townsend is a wonderful guitar
player and has brought out a couple of signature
guitars over the years, most notably a V-shaped
Peavey seven-string baritone that resembled
some sort of medieval weapon. Now he’s thrown
in his lot with German makers Framus, who’ve
introduced this, the Masterbuilt Stormbender
Devin Townsend.
The guitar boasts a pair of revolutionary
pickups, designed specifically to allow Devin
to play around with a number of different tonal
bases without having to switch guitars. Dubbed
Fluence Transcendence humbuckers, they’re made
by Fishman, a company well versed in providing
high-end pickups and transducers for all manner
of acoustic and electric instruments. It’s a little
technical, but the core of each active pickup is
based on a powerful Ceramic VIII magnet that
itself is utilised in different circuits. This provides
contrasting voices that Devin worked with
Fishman to isolate. One is ideal for high-gain tones,
while the other is a more passively voiced tone that
provides sweeter-sounding, single-coil options. At
Devin’s urging, Fishman shoehorned a third voice
into the pickup’s housing, basically a humbucker
version of the aforementioned passive option.
In a nutshell, the guitar enables you to go
from an authentically crushing metal sound to
a Telecaster-like twang at the f lick of a switch. And
it’s worth remembering that these aren’t digital
models, rather the result of changes in magnet
combination within each pickup. They do sound
good, and the guitar’s tone is aided no end by its
construction, comprising a maple and mahogany
body with a carbon-fibre insert and a gorgeous
neck of f lamed maple and tiger-stripe ebony
complete with f lorescent side dots.
It’s a beautifully made guitar, and at £5,462 you’d
expect nothing less. If that’s a little steep, check
out the Teambuilt version that’s also loaded with
Fluence pickups – yours for £2,880.
More at http://www.warwick.de/en/Framus-.htmlSimon BradleyExperimental is as experimental does. Meet the new signature
guitar of the wonderfully eclectic Devin Townsend.
CUT (^) THE CRAP
A guitar hero (^) meets an angry teenage
r. Cue (^) trouble.
In (^1993) , after bathing in a platinum-tin
tha ged^ spotlight^
nks to spells with David (^) Lee Roth and the m
Whitesnake ighty^
, not to mention the success of his own
Passion (^) & Warfare album, ‘stunt’ (^) guitari
(pic st^ Steve^ Vai^
tured) was at the top of his game.
When Vai set out to find a vocalist for his
album, S^ next^
ex & Religion, he came across a tape featurin
the then (^19) - year- g^
old Devin Townsend. “As soon as
I (^) heard (^) one minute (^) of Devin, I knew he
spe^ was^ someone^
cial.” Vai said at the time.
The album benefitted (^) greatly from the To
unique v wnsend’s^
ocal delivery, but issues came to the fore wh
the band hit the r en^
oad, and the partnership soon ended.
Looking back, Townsend told CR’s Dave L
a c ing:^ “I^ was^
**t...^ way^ too young to articulate my discontent with
the world. I (^) should never have taken a shit
guitar ca in^ his^ [Vai’s]^
se.”
GET
TY